Volunteers from Chinese Bible Church, Hancock, Redeemer, First Baptist, Follen, Quakers and the neighborhood.
Weather: Bit damp after rain of past two days, but otherwise fine.
Harvested: a total of 108.5 lbs. including tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, pole beans, eggplant, kale, chard, peaches, green peppers, bok choy, green onions, radishes, basil, and parsley.
Every once in a while we get a work day when for a variety of reasons it is tough for the faith communities that are scheduled to work that day to come up with members who are free to work. When that happens we send out a call for help to our general volunteer list and ask for subs. The need is always met. Having a list of folks who have offered their names and emails to be part of the on-call sub list has made it so much easier to keep the work going smoothly at the Interfaith Garden.
This weekend was a time of major conflicts and we needed an unusually large number of subs. Special thanks to all the extra folks who answered the call for help. It was a great crew this morning. We had a mix of newcomers and old hands. Everything got done and delivered to the Lexington Food Pantry in time for them to set up in advance of opening their doors at 9:30am.
Yanling and her friend harvested bok choy. They taught us this week that if you just cut off the leaves and not harvest the whole plant, the plant will regenerate and be ready to pick again in 2 to 3 weeks. The same with green onions. We picked 28+ lbs of bok choy and 2 lbs of green onions.
Pam helped with the eggplant. 14 ½ pounds went to the Food Pantry.
Elaine and Tom tackled the kale and chard. These 2 crops of like the EveryReady Bunny of the Garden. They keep going and going. If you harvest correctly (cut the largest leaves but always leave at least 4 behind), these cool-weather crops generally last thru the Fall. Today we harvested 10 ½ lbs. of Kale and 5 ¼ lbs. of chard.
Tom delivered produce that had been picked by Tuesday’s volunteers. They gave us a leg up on our picking chores this morning
A seasonal treat—peaches! This year was a good enough year to send peaches over to the Pantry…3 ½ lbs.
And the last thing that is added to the carts? Usually a few trays of cheerful flowers.